Marmomacc Meets Design focuses on sustainability

For this year’s Marmomacc Meets Design, Lorenzo Damiani with Calvasina managed to give marble unexpected lightness and flexibility through sustainability not calculated at the end of the production cycle but upstream of the design stage itself.

Photos by Andrea Astesiano

The “homeland” was inspiration behind the project by Irish studio Grafton Architects, which turned the Pibamarmi stand into a kind of abstract landscape.
Lorenzo Palmeri interpreted the materials of Stone Italiana by processing natural material as if it had been exposed to the work of atmospheric elements.
The design approach taken by Zaha Hadid Studio sought to create a language intended to interpret the geological events of a material generated from the earth while the constructive skills of Citco expressed a complex yet smooth geometry.
The “Lecce Stone” of Pi.Mar. inspired architects Luca Scacchetti and Cinzia Anguissola to experiment with the endless color combinations made possible by interaction between light and processing style.
The collaboration between Setsu & Shinobu Ito and Grassi Pietre continued with renewed attention to the spirituality of stone.
Massimiliano Caviasca processed Altoatesina Stone by Fuchs as a decorative element just as it comes from nature, with minimal processing and cuts.
Thanks to the understanding achieved with Testi Group, Tobia Scarpa was able to put forward thoughts about the potential of nature and the quality of human relationships with it.
Lucy Salamanca was to de-structure and re-interpret the porphyry worked by Odorizzi Porfidi, reinterpreting and associating it with water, earth and fire.

One of the goals of Marmomacc is to form a bridge between stone producers and the architecture and design community, and evidence of this can be found across the exhibit space.

The recently-concluded, sixth consecutive edition of Marmomacc Meets Design faced companies and designers with the topic of sustainability. All the projects presented conveyed a new way of working and then using stone material. The theme, “The Colors of Green: Sustainable Stone,” was the pretext for conveying broader and more intense messages in harmony with nature and ethics.

Every designer invited to Marmomacc developed a metaphor to express this urgent need for modernity and respect for nature. Lorenzo Damiani with Calvasina managed to give marble unexpected lightness and flexibility through sustainability not calculated at the end of the production cycle but upstream of the design stage itself. The “homeland” was inspiration behind the project by Irish studio Grafton Architects, which turned the Piba Marmi stand into a kind of abstract landscape. Meanwhile, Lorenzo Palmeri interpreted the materials of Stone Italiana by processing natural material as if it had been exposed to the work of atmospheric elements.

The design approach taken by Zaha Hadid Studio sought to create a language intended to interpret the geological events of a material generated from the earth while the constructive skills of Citco expressed a complex yet smooth geometry. Additionally, the “Lecce Stone” of Pi.Mar inspired architects Luca Scacchetti and Cinzia Anguissola to experiment with the endless color combinations made possible by interaction between light and processing style.

The collaboration between Setsu & Shinobu Ito and Grassi Pietre continued with renewed attention to the spirituality of stone. Thanks to the understanding achieved with Testi Group, Tobia Scarpa was able to put forward thoughts about the potential of nature and the quality of human relationships with it. Massimiliano Caviasca processed Altoatesina Stone by Fuchs as a decorative element just as it comes from nature, with minimal processing and cuts.

While the challenge for Lucy Salamanca was to de-structure and re-interpret the porphyry worked by Odorizzi Porfidi, reinterpreting and associating it with water, earth and fire. The company processed this material for the first time in an unconventional manner: hard porphyry was turned into something malleable.

Marble, a natural and ancient material, embodies an aesthetic, cultural and design heritage ensuring total harmony with our rediscovered sense of the ecology, environment and landscape — this is the “leitmotiv” unifying the thoughts and projects at Marmomacc Meets Design 2012.

In this month's issue of Stone World, check out an article on how government agencies are teaming with stone industry professionals to provide safe work environments. Also check out some features on quartz surfacing.